Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  “Injuns in the classroom,” muttered Moses Southern behind Elizabeth.

  “I beg your pardon?” She had heard him quite clearly, but she wanted to give the man an opportunity to back down. Elizabeth had realized for weeks that this confrontation was waiting for her, and she dreaded it. The scowl on Moses Southern’s face made it clear that her worries had been well founded.

  She straightened her shoulders and met his gaze full on.

  “Did you have a problem with the school you wanted to discuss with me?”

  “Moses is of the opinion that Indians don’t belong in the classroom,” said Julian easily, his eyes fixed on Elizabeth’s face.

  “Your Jemima is doing very well in my class, Mr. Southern,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I am very pleased that you decided to send her to school after all. I don’t think you have to worry that her education is suffering in any way.”

  “Jemima ain’t the problem,” Moses barked, causing Anna to come out from behind her counter, a yardstick clutched in one fist.

  “You watch yourself in my place,” Anna said. “I won’t have none of your tricks.”

  Moses turned on Anna. “If she wants to teach redskins, then she should do it somewhere else. She brings them two niggers into her own house to teach ’em; she could do the same with the Bonner half-breed. And what that young squaw is doing there, I want to know. That Mohawk ain’t got a thing to teach a decent Christian girl.”

  Julian had been following this outburst with a look of mixed amusement and curiosity, but now he looked away.

  Everyone was looking at Elizabeth, waiting for her to reply to Moses. Even Jed McGarrity, who had supported Elizabeth in every one of her ventures and at every turn, looked as if he needed an answer to this question. They all wanted to know what Many-Doves had to do in the classroom.

  She drew in a breath and clutched her gloves tighter in her hands to control their trembling. Anger could be a very good thing, she knew, if she could just harness it and turn it to her advantage.

  “Abigail is my assistant,” she said slowly. “She has been a great help to me. She works with the younger students while I have lessons with the older ones.”

  Moses began to bluster again, but Elizabeth held up a hand to stop him, and something in the set of her face told him that she was serious.

  “Now, Mr. Southern. I run my classroom the way I see fit. Thus far, I have had good success with my students, your daughter included. You will concede, sir, that I do not tell you how to set your traps, or what game you should hunt. I ask the same courtesy of you, that you allow me to judge where and when and whom I teach. And since you are so interested in the tutoring that goes on in my home, let me tell you that you are welcome to come by and join us at any time. We are reading the works of Thomas Paine at the present. You may be familiar with his philosophy on the rights of man?”

  Moses’ mouth opened and closed awkwardly, and then snapped shut suddenly.

  “I don’t like this business,” he said. “And I ain’t the only one. Just wait and see—”

  “And I acknowledge your objections,” Elizabeth countered icily. “Now, if you will excuse me—” And she turned back to the counter, where Anna stood with both fists on her hips. She had found a basket of cloth rests and Elizabeth looked through them. “These will do nicely,” she said, fingering the squares. She did not flinch when Moses Southern thundered past her and out the door.

  Elizabeth looked up into Anna’s eyes, and she saw there a look perhaps not of complete agreement, but of grudging acceptance. She knew that she was testing the limits of the villagers’ tolerance, and knew too how much she depended on the support and goodwill of those who would defend her in public.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Anna folded her mouth into a straight line, as if she were considering taking up the subject Moses had dropped. She would do it less combatively, Elizabeth knew, but the end result would be the same: she was uncomfortable with the fact that Many-Doves had a hand in the teaching. They all were. Elizabeth was suddenly very tired of the struggle. She looked down at the basket of handkerchiefs.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pulling out a solitary piece of fine embroidered lawn. It was edged with knitted lace and slightly yellowed with age.

  “Oh, Lordy, I forgot all about that. Bought it in Albany some many years ago. Never found nobody wanted to buy it, though. Too fancy for the folks around here. Old Olga Schlesinger used to come by regular, offer me a bushel of taters for it. But I couldn’t part with it at that price. Since she died ain’t nobody been interested in such a fancy piece.”

  Anna glanced up at Elizabeth with amusement sparking suddenly on her broad face.

  “Looks to me like a hankie a bride might need on her wedding day. If only we had a bride in these parts, maybe I could sell it.”

  Elizabeth saw too late that she had extricated herself from one difficult subject only to land in a topic area even more sensitive. Her first impulse was to deny hotly that she was anywhere near being a bride, but she could not do that. Richard had been a steady visitor to her father’s home for the past weeks, and Elizabeth had encouraged him. They had walked out together. She had visited his home. All this was common knowledge. Of course, Anna was thinking about a wedding party. What was worse, Elizabeth needed to encourage her further.

  Julian roused himself to come look over Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Thinking about your bridal clothes already, sister? I had no idea Todd was quite so quick off the mark.” His tone was light, but he watched Elizabeth very closely.

  “Now, you leave Miz Elizabeth alone,” Anna said, shooing Julian away, but she grinned broadly. “This here is women’s business.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Elizabeth said with a prim smile. “Please do wrap up the handkerchief. I may well have a use for it one day in the not too distant future.” And she sent her brother a cool stare, thinking how surprised he would be if he only knew what she really had in mind.

  The door opened behind her. Elizabeth tensed, suddenly sure that Nathaniel was standing there. She hadn’t seen him at all since their long talk in the barn, four weeks ago. In the past few days, she had started taking walks she thought might put her in his path, but with no success. Nathaniel was as good as his word: he avoided her completely. When the sugar-maple sap rose a week earlier than expected, Hannah had asked her to come to Hidden Wolf for their celebration, but close questioning had made it clear that this was her idea and not an invitation passed on from Nathaniel. As much as it hurt her to disappoint the child, she had found excuses enough to stay away.

  Making every effort to settle her face in a neutral expression, Elizabeth turned.

  “Dutch Ton!” exclaimed Jed. “What the devil are you doing in Paradise?”

  Elizabeth recognized the trapper immediately as the man who had run the betting at the Barktown lacrosse game. His blue eyes squinted out at them from a network of grimy wrinkles in a face sprouting tufts of dun-colored hair. Even from where she stood across the room, Elizabeth took in the waves of odor which drifted off the man. Her students had taught her that an acute sense of smell was a luxury she couldn’t afford, but even the worst of the children had nothing on Dutch Ton’s aged fragrance. She pressed one of the new handkerchiefs to her nose, closed her eyes and counted to ten.

  “Close the door!” Anna barked, bustling forward. “You old fool! What do you mean, standing there like a mummy! Speak up! If you came for a bath—which I must say is the one thing I would recommend for the sake of our noses—you’re in the wrong place. I don’t rent out tubs no more.”

  Elizabeth opened her eyes once again. Dutch Ton looked much as he had when she last saw him: a barrel of a man wrapped in rags and tattered pelts, every sort of weapon and implement dangling from the confusion of leather belts crisscrossing his torso and waist. He was squinting as he looked around the room. When his gaze finally reached Elizabeth, his mouth fell open to reveal a few blackish stumps of teeth.

&
nbsp; “What do you mean, staring at Miz Elizabeth that way? You’re putting the fear of God in her, can’t you see that, you ijit! Speak up, man. I heard you was in Fish House. What brings you all the way here?”

  The man blinked slowly, his gaze still fixed on Elizabeth.

  “I got a letter,” he said finally in a strangely high and cracked voice. “I’m lookin’ for the schoolmarm to read it to me. It’s from my sister.”

  There was a pause, in which Anna turned and sought out Jed McGarrity. “Jed,” she said. “Take this old fool out of here.”

  “But I got a letter,” Dutch Ton protested, holding up something that might have been paper. “From my sister. And I cain’t read.”

  To Elizabeth it looked like a hunk of old newspaper which had been left out in the rain, but the look on the man’s face moved her.

  “I could have a look at it,” she said to Anna.

  The trapper was quick for such a big man; he was halfway across the room to Elizabeth before Anna and Jed’s protests began.

  “Now, Miz Elizabeth,” Jed said. “Let me tell you about that letter.”

  “I may as well look at it,” Elizabeth murmured.

  “Well, you won’t be the first,” Anna said, disgruntled. “He shoves that nasty thing in everybody’s face, has been for the last twenty year. Nobody can read it. It ain’t in English.”

  “Lizzie’s good at languages,” said Julian, who had situated himself in the corner, uncharacteristically out of the conversation. He looked a little flustered when Dutch Ton glanced his way, and then relieved when the man looked away without seeming to recognize him.

  “Is it German?” asked Elizabeth, who had taken the letter from the trapper and retreated behind the counter, both for a surface where she could lay the letter out, and because her eyes were watering with the smell of him at close quarters. “Could your father read it?”

  “He can’t read,” said Anna. “Never learned. I tried to read it to him, figured it was German. But no luck.” She looked across the room to where her father slept on, oblivious.

  Elizabeth was trying to extract the sheet of writing paper from its envelope without tearing either of them, but it was hard work. The outer sheet had clearly been submerged at one point and left to dry, for the only ink left on it was a dark blur. She worked the papers apart with Dutch Ton leaning over the counter toward her.

  “It’s from my sister,” Dutch Ton said to nobody in particular.

  “Well,” said Elizabeth after a minute or two. “It’s badly damaged, I’m afraid, and quite faint. But I don’t think it’s German. Did you come over from Germany?”

  The look of surprise and confusion reminded Elizabeth of her younger pupils when they listened to the recitations of the older students, and heard questions asked and answered which seemed to them unfathomable.

  “Came on a ship,” he said, as if that should clear everything up. And then, nodding toward the letter. “Can you read it?”

  There was a sudden shifting and coughing from beside the hearth, and Anna looked up.

  “Data,” Anna said. “Waking up from his nap.”

  The old man stretched a little and then sat up, blinking. He looked at the small crowd gathered around him and he grinned, exposing three long and very canine teeth.

  “What have we got here?” he asked, his voice scratchy. “What’s up, then, Annie girl?”

  “Dutch Ton,” said Anna. “Came with his infernal letter.”

  “Who’s this?” asked the old man, his gaze settling on Elizabeth and ignoring the trapper completely.

  “The schoolmarm,” said Jed McGarrity. “Ain’t you met Miz Elizabeth yet?”

  “She don’t come in much, Jed. That ain’t my fault. The judge’s girl. Aha. You look like your brother.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Elizabeth murmured. “Mr.—”

  “Call me Axel. That’s my name. Axel Metzler.” He peered at her. “You’re a pretty one,” he said, exploring in his beard until he found a spot that needed scratching.

  “Elizabeth, would you read the letter or give it back to the man and let him get on his way?” interrupted Anna. “Lord knows I’ll never get the stench out of my goods.”

  “It’s from my sister,” the trapper intoned yet again.

  Axel sent a long look toward Dutch Ton, and then he turned to Elizabeth. “Can’t read it?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “It might be one of the Scandinavian languages.”

  The old man stretched out his hand, and Elizabeth put the letter in it. He puzzled at it for a few minutes. Elizabeth wondered if she should point out that he was reading it upside down, but the way he grinned at her told her better.

  “Twenty year he’s been bringing this letter around,” said Axel. “Enough is enough. Now I’ll read it to him.”

  Anna was watching her father closely, as if she expected some magic from him. Jed McGarrity looked from Elizabeth to Julian quizzically, but got only a puzzled shrug by way of explanation.

  “So,” said Axel, clearing his voice. “Your sister writes she is in good health, that the crops are good, that her children are growing, that her husband is a hardworking man.”

  Dutch Ton stood dumbstruck, considering. “Agatha?”

  “Ja, your sister Agatha. She misses you. Oh and the old cow with one horn died.”

  The trapper nodded absently and sat down on a stool, still staring at the mangled letter.

  “And the hay shed burned down but no real trouble, they built a better one. Oh, and the neighbor—”

  “Däta,” said Anna.

  “I’m just reading a letter.” He grinned up at her. “Let me.”

  But Dutch Ton stood up, took the letter from Axel, who was looking a bit disappointed to have his services broken off so abruptly, and tucked the paper into a gap in his coat.

  “You see?” asked Axel Metzler of Elizabeth and Anna when the door had closed behind him. “How easy it was?”

  “What if he finds somebody to really read it to him someday?” asked Jed.

  “Not bloody likely,” said Julian with a snort.

  “Däta always was a storyteller,” said Anna by way of explanation. “Can’t stop him once he gets started.”

  “Well, then,” said Julian. “Let’s have a story. What have you got to tell, old man?”

  Axel sent Julian a narrow and appraising look that made Elizabeth shift uncomfortably, but Julian seemed unperturbed.

  “Tell the one about the Bear Dancer,” said Jed.

  Axel waved a hand dismissively. “Not today.”

  Elizabeth had been sitting silently and wondering if she dare speak up. She felt the old man’s gaze on her, and before she knew how she could say what she wanted to say without arousing Julian’s curiosity, she spoke.

  “Tell us about Jack Lingo and the Tory Gold.”

  There was a little silence, and Elizabeth thought he would refuse. He was chewing on the stem of his cold pipe, considering. She dared not look at her brother, or even at Anna. No one could know how interested she was in this story.

  “Ja, sure,” said Axel finally. “That’s a good one. Jack Lingo. Taught me everthing there was to know about the beaver. Back in ’57 it was when I first ran into him. Hard times, girly. Pray to God you never see the like.”

  With a sigh he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.

  “The Mingo were selling scalps to the French and they weren’t fussy about where they got ’em, neither. Me and the missus had a little place on the Mohawk back in them days, near Albany, until they burned us out. Oh, ja, hard times. My Gret went to stay by her sister—she was big with this one here—” He jerked his thumb toward Anna, who nodded her approval. “So I think to myself, a man has got to have some cash, and I went into the bush, looking for beaver. Down on the Mohawk they was all gone, hunted clean out. But up in the bush I was thinking I can make me some money to start fresh.

  “Now I weren’t no boy, you know. More than forty, I
was then, but green as a stripling. I run into Jack. Good thing, too. The bush ain’t kind. No, it’ll do the same job to a man as a Mingo war club but not so quick, most of the time. Ever seen what a spring bear can do to a man? Or a painter, dropping out of a tree?

  “A painter?” asked Elizabeth, confused but also amused by this image.

  “He means a panther,” interjected Anna. “Pa! Get onto the Tory Gold! That’s the story we want!”

  “You’ll take the stories I got, missy,” Axel said good-naturedly, his great splayed thumb packing down the tobacco in his pipe. “My whole life I’m telling this story, and you know better?”

  Anna waved him on impatiently.

  “Naja. So. The Frenchies were all over the lake in them days. Feeling good about things, like they had the whole north woods to tie up in a pretty package and send back to their king. I was up in the bush trying my hand at the beaver and making a fine mess of it when they took old William Henry and turned him inside out.”

  “Fort William Henry,” interjected Jed.

  Axel went on as if he hadn’t heard him.

  “The Frog Eaters and the Mingos made short work on it. Drove the Tories and the militia out and cut ’em to pieces. Now they say it was Montcalm who found the Tory Gold, hid under the floorboards. Don’t know what it was doing there. Never in my life have I known a soldier to be paid in gold. I seen a gold guinea coin myself once, a long time later in Albany. I imagine that a thousand of them gold joes in a pile would look to a man a little like heaven. But that Montcalm was an officer and they say a good one. He packed all that gold up and he got together some of his men and he sent it back to Montreal, thinking to send it on to France, I reckon. But that’s where he made his mistake.”

  Axel hunched forward, gesturing to Elizabeth with one knotty finger until she leaned toward him.

  “He sent them overland, through the bush. They had the water all tied up, you see, and they could of put that gold on a boat and had it in Montreal in no time. But they set off overland, and that right there was the mistake.”

  Leaning back, Axel paused to draw on his pipe, looking contemplatively at the ceiling. Elizabeth smiled, recognizing the studied pause of a born storyteller.